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Every second Saturday of the month, 4 pm - Divine Liturgy in English of Sunday - Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral of the Holy Family, Duke Street, London W1K 5BQ. Followed by refreshments.Next Liturgy: Saturday 9th September, 4pm

To purchase The Divine Liturgy: an Anthology for Worship (in English), order from the Sheptytsky Institute here, or the St Basil's Bookstore here.To purchase the Divine Praises, the Divine Office of the Byzantine-Slav rite (in English), order from the Eparchy of Parma here.The new catechism in English, Christ our Pascha, is available from the Eparchy of the Holy Family and the Society. Please email johnchrysostom@btinternet.com for details.

"It's Now or Never: The Return of the Eastern Christians to Iraq and Syria" - John Pontifex of Aid to the Church in Need gives the annual Christopher Morris Lecture in the Society's 90th year. Monday 27th November at the Ukrainian Catholic Cathedral of the Holy Family. 6-15 pm Divine Liturgy, 7-15 pm Lecture, 8-15 pm Reception. £10 donation requested. RSVP to johnchrysostom@btinternet.com

(On the Kidnapping of
Metropolitan Paul and Archbishop Gregorios Yohanna)

Rabweh 27 April 2013

Protocol 196/2013R

A cloud of fear and suffering floats over the Middle East and especially
Syria’s city of Aleppo, which is still awaiting, on the eve of Orthodox Palm
Sunday, the release of its two missing bishops, Their Eminences Paul Yazigi,
Greek Orthodox Metropolitan of Aleppo and Alexandretta, and Gregorios Yohanna
Ibrahim, Syriac Orthodox Archbishop of Aleppo, of whom we have no news - despite
constant efforts at all levels - made to secure their release.

We are in constant contact with Their Beatitudes John X and Mar Ignatios Zakka I Iwas.

During these holy days of Palm Sunday and Holy Week, we declare our
solidarity with both patriarchs and our brother bishops Paul and Gregorios
Yohanna, with a view to obtaining the speedy release of the two churchmen and
their return to their Churches and congregations, so that everyone can joyfully
celebrate their return to serving Christians and all citizens of Aleppo and
dear Syria.

We ask all our faithful in all our Churches to unite in constant prayer
to obtain the grace of this release and all our bishops and parish priests to
read the letter for Palm Sunday of His Beatitude John X. We pray for peace and
security in Syria and for it to find once more the path of dialogue and
reconciliation among its citizens.

Sunday, 28 April 2013

"In this letter, I should like to highlight the importance of the Gospel, the New Evangelisation in the life of Christianity and further, in the life of every believer and even of every person. The Church has always been down the centuries “Mother and Teacher. One of her marks is that of being apostolic, bringing Christ’s message and proclaiming it down the centuries to every generation. She still fulfils today Saint Paul’s summons to every heart, “Woe to me if I preach not the Gospel.” (1 Corinthians 9: 16) I have every confidence that I shall light the fire of this Good News, so that the Gospel becomes the torch in the heart, mind and hand of every faithful person in our Melkite Greek Catholic Church."

Further to Patriarch Gregorios' Paschal Letter on New Evangelisation and the challenges of the current situation in Syria and the wider Holy Land region, here is the Patriarchate's report on its assistance to displaced people, issued 28 April 2013.

Report on aid to displaced
persons

Damascus

April 2013

We have been able to make a single distribution of
$ 50 per family to 1, 200 families, thanks to the donation made in October 2012
by Pope Benedict XVI and members of the Synod on the New Evangelisation ($300,000 from the Pope and $700,000 from the Synodal Fathers.)

We have made a distribution of 125 parcels of winter
clothes to children, as well as 165 parcels of mattresses and eiderdowns (donated
by the Middle East Council of Churches.)

We have also been able to give medical assistance
to 450 patients, with 47 surgical operations and the issuance of 400 prescriptions,
worth £S 1,200, 000
in total.

The assistance provided by the Melkite Greek
Catholic Patriarchate consisted of food,
drugs, medical assistance, assistance to relatives of terrorism victims and for
ransoming abductees, rents and rudimentary repairs to shell-damaged homes.

The poor have become even poorer and more disadvantaged
because of the crisis and trade embargo.

Our school in Damascus has lost 60% of its 1, 350
students and has had to transfer those remaining to other premises. Receipts
from school fees have significantly decreased. Shells have fallen on the
abandoned school, causing an estimated $ 500, 000 worth of damage.

It takes about $ 1,500 per month to support the Voluntary
Emergency Committee’s work.

In terms of administration, there are stationery and
transport costs, plus a few gifts.

A small committee also visits families to assess needs
and provide vital assistance.

"We are being surrounded by much pain and suffering. Throughout our Antiochian lands, dangers threaten our homes, and political conflicts storm our countries. As a result, man’s livelihood, dwelling, and even life are at risk. We are tried every day by death or abduction, and our latest plight is the recent kidnapping of our beloved brothers, Bishop Paul Yazigi, Greek Orthodox Metropolitan of Aleppo, Iskenderun and dependencies, and Bishop John Ibrahim, Syriac Orthodox Metropolitan of Aleppo, and the killing of the Deacon who was accompanying them"

"As we are entering the time of the Holy Passion and Resurrection of our Lord, I invite you to reveal the unity of our Church who fervently gathers Her flock in all that is right and just. In this time, let us exceptionally intensify our prayers and supplications. Just as our Lord was not afraid to walk on the path of Calvary; in the same way we are invited to walk with Him along this path, being fully aware that by the Cross we shall conquer, because the Lord is risen from the dead and He will raise us with Him. Let us intensify our petitions as a living testimony, asking God to remove all injustice, praying for the quick return of our abducted hierarchs to their beloved ones, for the comfort of the bereaved, and for the deterrence of those people with cruel hearts, so that they may be inspired to refrain from harming their fellow human beings"

Amid reports that Mor Gregorios and Metropolitan Paul have NOT been released and there is confusion over their whereabouts, despite earlier confirmation from the BBC via the Daily Star of Lebanon that they had been, we continue to ask for your prayers for the two bishops and for all the people, Christian, Muslim and others who are being subjected to daily strife and danger. In union of prayer, here are two appeals for the- the first from Patriarch Kirill in Moscow and the second from Pope Francis.

His Excellency Vladimir Vladimirovich
Putin, President of the
Russian Federation

Your Excellency,
dear Vladimir Vladimirovich!

With a sense of great anxiety I am informing you that on April 22 this year, the bishop of the Antiochian Orthodox Church, Metropolitan of
Aleppo Paul, was kdinapped by unknown persons. His car was attacked, and the deacon who was driving the hierarch
killed. Metropolitan Paul is the brother of His Beatitude the Patriarch of
Antioch and All the East, John X.

At the same time, the Syro-Jacobite Archbishop of Aleppo Mor Gregorious Yohanna Ibrahim
(Syrian Orthodox Church) was kidnapped along with the Metropolitan. Both Archbishops were in an area outside Aleppo,
observing the distribution of humanitarian aid.

The Russian Orthodox Church, knowing the price of human pain and suffering at first hand,
is grounded on the principle of the inviolability of the sacred gift of life, and the
inadmissibility of actions aimed at intimidation and violence against the
civilian population, including religious leaders.

Accordingly, because of this tragic incident, I am writing to you to request that the
measures, within the capacity available to the Russian state, be taken for the early
release of Syrian bishops.

Taking this opportunity, I wish you peace, good health and God's help in your responsibilities of public service.

Here is the translation of the statement released by Fr. Federico Lombardi, director of the Holy See Press Office on the recent kidnapping of two Metropolitan bishops in Syria yesterday.

"The kidnapping of the two Metropolitan bishops of Aleppo, Mar Gregorios Ibrahim of the Syriac Orthodox Church, and Paul Yazigi of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch, and the killing of their driver whilst they were carrying out a humanitarian mission, is a dramatic confirmation of the tragic situation in which the Syrian population and the Christian communities in Syria are living. The Holy Father has been informed of this recent, extremely grave act, which comes on top of the increasing violence of the past days and a humanitarian emergency of enormous proportions. Pope Francis is following the events with deep participation and he is praying for the health and the liberation of the two kidnapped bishops. He is also praying so that, with the support and prayers of all, the Syrian people may finally see tangible responses to the humanitarian drama and real hopes of peace and reconciliation rise on the horizon."

When Margaret Thatcher negotiated with Communists about human rights, she had a self-imposed rule. It was to deliver the same message in private as in public. That was, and is, unusual. Politicians prefer bold and indignant speeches at home to bruising confrontations with foreign leaders face to face. But you have to do it. The reason is simple. It is because, whatever someone's ideology, he will not take you seriously as a human being if he thinks you don't really care about the causes you espouse. When the Soviet leaders understood that Ronald Reagan and Mrs Thatcher were deadly serious about the rights of people who, in Soviet eyes, didn't really matter at all, the Kremlin also grasped that Western leaders were serious about wider strategy — Afghanistan, subversion, weaponry and the rest.

The struggle against Soviet Communism and the struggle against militant Islam are different in several ways. But one lesson confirmed by the Cold War applies to today's confrontation with jihad. We know what doesn't work. We know that cynicism and timidity are as misplaced with mullahs as with commissars.

Washington and London are perfectly well aware that across the Middle East Christianity is being ruthlessly extinguished. But Western governments — particularly the governments of the US and the UK, the two countries that fought hardest for dissidents in the Cold War — remain almost entirely silent. They have tacitly decided that the sacrifice of Christian minorities is a price worth paying for smooth relations with Arab leaders. There are no runs to be scored in domestic politics either. When the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel, stated in 2012 that Christianity "is the most persecuted religion worldwide", she was assailed by a storm of outrage. There is, in fact, no more to be gained by acknowledging what is happening to Christians now than there was to Jews in the 1930s.

Parallels with the fate of Jewry must be used with caution; but in this case they are historically apt. It was clear what was developing in Central Europe long before the state-sponsored intimidation, expulsions, internments, degradations and finally death camps. Today in the Middle East, too, the forces that plan, in their own good time, but pretty shortly, to achieve Muslim societies unpolluted by unbelievers — the Jews there have already gone, of course — are largely in place. The leaders already know that nominally Christian Western countries and their governments will look the other way when the massacres, land grabs and mass expulsions start in earnest.

Sceptics will reply that the problems of Christians in the region are intertwined with history. That, of course, is correct. (It was also true of the Jews in Central and Eastern Europe — but that is another story.) Numbers of Christians in the Middle East have fallen over the centuries, and faster still since the end of colonialism. Today perhaps 10 to 12 million Christians remain in the Middle East. Nor is it just numbers that tell the tale. So does declining status.

This history of decline is precisely why it is so easy, and can seem so normal to Westerners (and useful to Islamic apologists), for Christians to be regarded as relics doomed to inevitable extinction. If cultural isolation, declining birth rates and economic migration push in the same direction, why not add a nudge and a squeeze from persecution, particularly if blame can be diffused?

There was never a time when Christian minorities living under Islam enjoyed equality. Dhimmi status (and its post-Ottoman equivalent) is essentially precarious. But, between the massacres, large Christian communities were useful, wily and pliable enough to survive and often prosper. The case of Iraq is especially instructive, both about the past and the present.

You might not imagine it from Islamic paranoia and Western apologitis, but Christians brought something very positive to the Muslim world. In Baghdad, serving the Abbasid caliphs, in the eighth and ninth centuries, was a team of over 50 Christians (plus a Jew and a Sabian) employed to translate Greek philosophical works into Arabic. Alongside the translators, Christian doctors, scientists, philosophers and even theologians were indispensable to the transition of Arabic Islam from a primitive warlike culture to an advanced civilisation. Gratitude was limited: envy and destruction intervened. Assyrian Christians suffered their own Armenian-style genocide at the hands of the Ottomans and their successors. They were also foolish enough to be loyal to the British, who, of course, abandoned them. But Iraqi Christians clung on after independence; they recouped their fortunes, made their compromises, survived and even rose.

Life was already difficult under Saddam Hussein. But only in the aftermath of the American invasion did life become intolerable. Sunni radicals, assisted by gangsters, kidnappers and land-grabbers of different brands, stole, bombed, kidnapped, murdered and cleansed the Christians from Baghdad and elsewhere. Driven out to stinking poverty-stricken villages on the plains of Nineveh or seeking refuge in Mosul, on the brink of ethnic civil war and amid the bomb blasts, the Christians had no outside help. The West was embarrassed by them. So they have left in their tens of thousands. Of some 1.4 million Christians living in Iraq before the war, perhaps 400,000 remain. They have gone to Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. Some have gone to America. Sweden has opened its borders, and so in varying degrees have Germany and France. Not Britain, of course.

The destruction of Christian communities in Iraq, conducted with Western knowledge and complicity, is now being repeated in Syria. The Iraqi Christian arrivals knew what to expect, presumably, but it was a shock to the two million indigenous Syrian Christians, who had enjoyed a secure and comfortable existence. Assad's regime was viciously repressive if you challenged it. But it also maintained order, respected property, permitted diversity and protected religious freedom. It was clear from the start that any revolution would imperil these benefits. It was evident that Saudi money and influence would dominate the secular opposition, and that the Salafists and al-Qaeda would fight more brutally and emerge on top. Yet at no stage did the West express worries for the minorities, above all the Christian minority, caught up in the maelstrom. When Assad finally falls, there will be a terrible reckoning against those that the now radicalised Sunni majority want to punish. It has already begun.

Christian refugees from Syria have been flooding into Lebanon and Turkey. In Lebanon it is to the existing Christian communities and monasteries that they look for shelter and sustenance. The richer ones hope to buy a smuggled passage to Europe for the going rate of $20,000. Others wait on events, wondering when they will be on the move again. Those Christians who get out across the border into Turkey — bypassing the refugee camps, where the men would be conscripted by anti-Assad fighters — are ironically returning home. The region once housed the heartland of the Syrian Orthodox Church whence the Syriacs fled the early 20th-century genocide.

Half the Middle East's Christians live in Egypt, where the Copts are some 10 per cent of the population. But that is changing too. There is a massive outflow, mainly to the United States. From the time of Sadat and then increasingly under Mubarak the Copts were under threat. The threat was localised, from vengeful and envious preachers and mobs, but government, in covert relations with the Muslim Brotherhood, failed to protect. Since the Egyptian Revolution the threat is no longer localised. It is felt throughout Egypt; and it also comes from the top. It underpins the state in the new Sharia-based constitution, which President Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood, in a deal with their Salafist rivals, steamrollered through. The new constitution undermines the political rights of Christians; it threatens Church funds; and it legitimises the brutal campaign waged against those that Islam regards as "converts". Recently, a Coptic woman, Nadia Mohamed Ali, who was raised a Christian but married a Muslim, sought on her husband's death to return to her faith and have her and her children's identification papers changed. In January this year, a court sentenced her to 15 years in prison.

Christianity in the Middle East is ancient and, with its denominational oddities, is often confusing for Westerners. But there is no excuse for confusion in Saudi Arabia, which has recently become home to one of the Middle East's larger (mostly Western Catholic or Protestant) Christian populations. The Saudi authorities systematically oppress the million or more Christians who work there. These are largely uninfluential menials — Filipinos, Africans and Asians — which makes it less internationally troublesome. Saudi Arabia allows no non-Muslim worship, even in private homes; Bibles cannot be distributed; display of the cross (even on a footballer's jersey) is banned. These laws are given effect by the feared religious police. In February, for example, they swooped on a private gathering of more than 50 Ethiopian Christians and threw the leaders in jail.

The United States provides billions of dollars in aid to Egypt, but it will not use it as leverage for the Copts. US power underpins Saudi security, but it had nothing to say when (in March 2012) the Saudi Grand Mufti, a high state official, declared it "necessary to destroy all the churches" in the region. The new US Secretary of State, John Kerry, has form. When US Representatives Frank Wolf (Republican) and Anna Eshoo (Democrat) co-sponsored a bill to create a special envoy position within the State Department to advocate on behalf of religious minorities in the Middle East, it was blocked in the Senate by the Foreign Relations Committee, then chaired by Kerry. President Obama's gesture of support for Christians in Bethlehem last month does not make up for years of negligence.

As for Britain, the hypocrisy is even more revolting. The Coalition government insists on prioritising overseas aid, even at the expense of the defence budget. David Cameron takes a special interest. He has publicly threatened to cut aid to countries that oppress homosexuals. But he won't consider applying that threat to countries that persecute Christians. Indeed, the sum total of Britain's action to protect Christianity from extinction in the Middle East is a list of low-level, low-key initiatives, undertaken by junior ministers or unimportant officials, which (as Mrs Thatcher used to say) "wouldn't knock the skin off a rice pudding".

But does it matter? If you really believe that systematic persecution is wrong, it does. But who in the upper reaches of Western governments really believes that today? And, naturally, the notion that Christian countries should protect Christians is so preposterously incorrect that no modern politician would suggest it. But there is one argument, which even the most hardened critic of morally driven foreign policy should consider.

In majority-Muslim countries where non-Muslim minorities are openly persecuted, radical Islam grows, and that is a threat. The threat is levelled initially at secular governments that do not conform to the purists' idea of Islamist doctrine. But when these governments bend or fall, they or their successors become enemies of the West. Meanwhile, within their borders both local and imported terrorism take root. That process is now advancing in different forms throughout the Arab world. It occurs partly because of the nature of Islam and its failed engagement with modernity. But it happens, too, because the West no longer knows what it is, or wants, or believes, and because it is morally weak. Today's leaders adopt silence in the face of evil. And, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer observed: "Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act."

The West should act. It should denounce explicitly and forcefully the attacks on Middle East Christians. It should make all aid and other assistance conditional on Middle East governments upholding the equal rights of Christians. It should acknowledge the unique danger that Christians in the Middle East face because of their faith, and accept them on those grounds as refugees. And it should do all this before it is too late.

Monday, 22 April 2013

Please pray for Archbishop Gregorios Yohanna Ibrahim and Archbishop Boulos (Paul), who are reported kidnapped by armed insurgents in northern Syria.
According to MalankaraSyriacVoice relaying a report from Al-HadathNews, Archbishop Boulos was visiting on the Turkish side of his diocese (which stretches from Aleppo to Antioch in Turkey). Mor Gregorios had taken him in his car and on their way back to Aleppo they were abducted. Mor Gregorios' driver, a priest serving as chaplain, was killed and thrown out of the vehicle. The two Archbishops are said to be unharmed, but the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Antioch is not making an official announcement until the morning of the 23rd April, when more details are to hand. But an initial report has now been carried by Al-Jazeera English channel.

Archbishop Boulos is the brother of the Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch, His Beatitude John X Yazigi.

Unconfirmed reports suggest that the kidnappers may be foreigners, possible Chechens.

Aleppo is renowned as a city where the different Christian Churches - Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Eastern Catholic, Latins and Protestants - as well as Muslims, Jews and other minorities, coexist in harmony and mutual love. The internationally used materials for the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity in 2004 were jointly prepared by the Churches of Aleppo together.

Mor Gregorios is a friend to the Centre for Eastern Christianity at Heythrop College in London, with which the Society works closely. Only in the early part of 2012 was he at the Centre to give a lecture on the situation for Christians in Syria and the wider Middle East.

Please pray for Sayedna Boulos and Abuna Mor Gregorios in their hour of trial. Please pray for the repose of the soul of Mor Gregorios' driver in heaven, who has called upon to give his life in service of the Lord and his Church on earth.

On July 28, Russians, both Catholics and Orthodox, will celebrate the 950th anniversary of the baptism of St. Vladimir, Great Prince of Kiev, and his people. The Society of St. John Chrysostom is to commemorate this historical event by a solemn Liturgy in the Eastern rite and a special meeting.

The Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom will be celebrated by Fr. F. Wilcock, S.J., at the church of SS. Anselm and Cecilia, Kingsway, by kind permission of the Very Rev. Canon Daniell on the feast of St. Vladimir, Thursday, July 28, at 11 a.m. It is interesting to note that for the first time in this country an English Catholic choir will sing the Liturgy. It was trained by Mr. P. C. Silby who went to great trouble to overcome the difficulty of unfamiliar Slavonic words, a difficulty which is being gradually overcome. Needless to say that all members of the choir gave their work-and time free, and, by attending the weekly practices, supported Mr. Silby's devoted and competent work. The Mass will be offered for Russia and for her return to the faith in which she was baptised just 950 years ago. The final arrangements for the meeting and lectures have not yet been fixed, but will be announced shortly.

Like English history, Russian history had been tampered with to support a certain thesis. The official version was that St. Vladimir received his faith front a particular Greek Church after careful study of different religions, and that he was a champion of Orthodoxy as this term is erroneously understood in the East, But scholarly researches of Russian and Western historians and the discovery of new documents have shown that period under a very different light (see the short article on this subject in the current issue of the Month), and it is more than likely that St. Vladimir, being a Varangian or Norseman, owed his conversion not to Greeks, but to his own people.

Vladimir's close friend Olav Tryggwison, King of Norway, who himself was baptised in Britain, seems to have played an important part in his conversion.

But whatever the origins of Russian Christianity, one fact must never be forgotten : in the tenth century the unity of the Christian world was not yet broken by the great schism and, despite national, dynastic and other rivalries, there existed a feeling of the unity of the whole civilised world.

Under its Norman conquerors "Rus," as Russia was known then, was evolving into a European country in close and friendly relations with the West and with the Holy See. The recent researches of Fr. F. Dvornik, Professor of Theology at the University of Prague., as well as those of the Assumptionist scholars Frs. V. Grumel and M. Jugie, have shown that the version accepted in the West of the ninth century schism of Patriarch Photius is wrong. It was elaborated by Cardinal Baronius in the sixteenth century under the influence of false documents compiled by followers of Patriarch Ignatius, rival of Photius. Actually, after a quarrel with Pope Nicholas I, Photius was reconciled to Rome, recognised as lawful patriarch of Constantinople by Pope John VII, the Acts of the Council of 869-870 which condemned him being annulled. The same historians have also thrown new light upon the schism of Michael Cerularius in 1054, showing that the final separation was due more to a lack of understanding than to any doctrinal differences. Professor Dvornik is shortly expected in London, and the Society of St. John Chrysostom hopes he will do them the honour of speaking at the meeting of July 28.

Dr. Dvornik's researches have opened a door for the reconciliation between the East and the West: if the origins of the separation are due to misunderstandings and personal quarrels, such misunderstandings, humanly speaking, should not last for ever. The rift has lasted so long that a reconciliation is certainly more difficult now and can be reached only by the sincere desire to see not what separates, but what unites the two Churches. St. Vladimir, his grandmother St. Olga and other saints of the Russian Church before the separation belong to the Universal Church: they were the apostles of Unity and through their intercession the broken unity may perhaps be restored.

Some recent developments in the world of inter-Apostolic Church relations are encouraging. It should be pointed out that the thaw in the frozen tundra of emotional frigidity among the Churches could be traced back to the lifting of the anathemas between Rome and Constantinople in December 1965 by His Holiness Pope Paul VI of Rome and His All-Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Athenagoras of Constantinople. This event, although symbolic, initiated a series of exchanges between the Eastern and Western Churches culminating recently in a statement of Holy Spirit-filled hope by the current Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew who said: "The uniqueness of the founders of our Churches, of Elder Rome and of New Rome, the Holy Apostles Peter and Andrew, as brothers according to the flesh, constitutes a motivation for both of our Churches to move toward the genuine experience of spiritual brotherhood and the restoration of communion in this same spirit, in truth and in love."

Also on the Orthodox side is the announcement that, under the aegis of the Department External Church Relations of the Moscow Patriarchate, a theological commission approved a document on 08 November 2012, entitled The position of the Moscow Patriarchate on the question of primacy in the Universal Church. It is now submitted to the Russian Orthodox synod for approval.

Fr George is a priest of the Antiochian Orthodox Archdiocese of North America and a Licensed Clinical Psychologist. Many of his articles can be found at Orthodoxy Today: www.orthodoxytoday.org

Based on the success of ECP's “Fortnight for Freedom” bulletin insert, in conjunction with the Year of Faith, and Pope Benedict’s call for a “new evangelization,” Eastern Christian Publications has developed a new popular level monthly magazine called Theosis: Spiritual Reflections from the Christian East
It is distributed as a print and eZine version, and began with a first issue in September 2012.

Each issue of Theosis contains over 100 pages of several short essays for spiritual reflection on topics such as Prayer, Eucharist, Sacraments, Scripture, Holy Icons, Sacramental Living, Spirituality, and a Feast of the Month. Contributors include authors and theologians from a wide variety of Orthodox and Catholic Churches, including Metropolitan Kallistos (Ware) and Archimandrite Robert Taft, SJ. A photo essay of an Eastern church somewhere in the world is also featured. It also includes the Calendar of Saints for the month with daily prayers, and a short biography of each saint according to the Byzantine calendar.

Printed in full color with plenty of icons and photographs, Theosis is printed in a pocket size edition so you can carry it with you everywhere, and read just a few pages each day. The eZine edition is distributed by email both as an interactive PDF and as an ePub format.

The annual print subscription is only $60.00 per year, or $5.00 per month including postage. The eZine subscription is only $29.95 per year, or about $2.50 per month. Single issues and bulk quantity discounts are also available. More information and sample pages can be viewed at www.ecpubs.com/theosis.html, and you can subscribe online and buy individual issues at the same webpage.

Eastern Christian Publications is the publishing arm of the Society of St John Chrysostom in the United States.

Vatican
City, 13 April 2013 (VIS) – Following is the full text of a communique issued
today by the Secretariat of State.

“The
Holy Father Francis, taking up a suggestion that emerged during the General
Congregations preceding the Conclave, has established a group of cardinals to
advise him in the government of the universal Church and to study a plan for
revising the Apostolic Constitution on the Roman Curia, 'Pastor Bonus'.

The
group consists of:

Cardinal
Giuseppe Bertello, president of the Governorate of Vatican City State;

Friday, 12 April 2013

Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, a bishop of the Russian Orthodox Church, recently expressed hope that the new pope, Francis, will continue the policy of rapprochement with the Orthodox Church and will not support, what he calls the expansion of the Ukrainian Greek Catholics. “The union is the most painful topic in the Orthodox-Catholic dialogue, in relations between the Orthodox and the Catholics. If the pope will support the union, then, of course, it will bring no good," he said.

The metropolitan is worried: it is said that the new pope has an affinity for the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church (UGCC). So much so that one Russian commentator claimed that in Francis, “we have a Ukrainian pope”. This may worsen relations between the Orthodox and Catholic Church Greek Catholics.

The Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church confuses most outsiders. It is an Eastern rite church that is in communion with Vatican. Drawing on the Christian legacy of medieval Kievan-Rus', it was officially founded through the 1596 Union of Brest (hence the church’s other widespread name, Uniate). “Greek” was added later to distinguish it from the Roman Catholic Church.

Jorge Mario Bergoglio, the new pope, had a Ukrainian Greek Catholic priest as his mentor and is familiar with the Church's rites, says Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the head of the UGCC. Mr [Patriarch] Shevchuk previously served in Buenos Aires and got to know the future pope there. Many in the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church hope that Francis will elevate it to a patriarchate, from its current status as a Major Archbishopate.

Today Greek Catholics make up about 15% of Ukraine's population. Most of them live in the west of the country, including the city of Lviv. (They also have a strong presence in the Ukrainian diaspora.) After almost half a century of persecution under Soviet rule, the Church resurfaced as one of the pillars of national identity in western Ukraine. It is an influential force here, though it has kept its distance from politics.

Someone once quipped: in the rest of Ukraine, religious people go to church; in Lviv, everyone goes to church. The city is famous for its panoply of churches, most of them now Greek Catholic, though it still has both a Roman Catholic and an Armenian cathedral. (Up until 1941, Lviv was also an important centre of the Jewish religion.) In the mornings the sound of the liturgy, sung in Ukrainian, spills out into the cobbled streets.

Lviv Business School, part of the Ukrainian Catholic University which is affiliated to the [Ukrainian Greek Catholic] Church, has become known for combining business education with ethics. Encouraging “trust, openness and ethics” in the new generation of business leaders can help change negative trends in Ukraine, says Sophia Opatska, the School's chief executive. This is especially important in Ukraine, where “business often takes on social and economic responsibilities that belong to government in democratic countries”, she adds.

On April 7th crowds of Greek Catholics joined a procession through Lviv representing the way of the cross, slowing down the traffic. The Church's leaders have already invited pope Francis to visit Ukraine. The new pope himself has made no special mention of Ukraine since his election as the Ukrainian media has pointed out. All the same, many of Ukraine's Greek Catholics eagerly await the visit of pope Francis, the closest they have had to a Ukrainian pope.

In furtherance of greater unity among Christians in the Holy Land, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem, with the agreement of the Apostolic See of Peter at Rome, has decided to modify its Liturgical Calendar, more specifically its method of calculating the Paschal New Moon and thus the date of Easter. From now it will follow the practice of the Orthodox, as well as Eastern Catholic, Churches in the same land.Easter therefore was not yet happened in the Holy Land in 2013. Rather than March 31 as in the rest of the Latin Church, Easter 2013 will be celebrated on May 5th.But to meet the needs of pilgrims coming to Jerusalem and Bethlehem this year, Latin churches in these cities will not follow the new arrangements.

Monday, 8 April 2013

Readers who have consulted our recent post on Metropolitan Hilarion's astonishing remarks on the integrity of a Jesuit Holy Father, in which the familiar and unfounded complaints about the Ukrainian Catholic Church's very existence are also rehearsed, may be interested in our chairman's reflections on the challenges and misrepresentation faced by members of the Ordinariate for Catholics with Anglican Patrimony - Anglican "Uniates"?, in a post dated 8th April 2012.

Of particular interest is the quotation, at length, from Fr Robert Taft SJ on the initiative for Catholic unity coming from the Orthodox Ruthenian side as a means of preserving Orthodoxy, not out of alleged proselytism and Latinisation of Byzantines by activists of the "Roman" Catholic Church.

We have just received this Press Release from HG Angaelos of the Coptic Orthodox Church in Britain, which is far more truthful than the BBC's reportage over the weekend that patronised the event as a religious fight "between" Christians and Muslims, wherease the Christians were only and in an emergency taking proportionate action to defend themselves, something that would be regarded as a basic right in an English setting.As is well known, the Christians in Egypt are a small minority, constantly subjected to civil discrimination, deprived of the legitimate protection of the State, equality before the Law, and living in fear from unprovoked attacks from Islamist extremists with which the Muslim Brotherhood government, which rigged the framing of a constitution to privilege Sunni Islamists to the exclusion of Christians, secular groups and figures and other minorities, sympathises.We salute Bishop Angaelos for his vigilance of the UK media when it can be deliberately unsympathetic and discriminatory towards Christians on the grounds, not of fact, but of the faith and worldview. The Society assures him of our prayers and concerns for his people, not least those in exile here in the UK with family and friends in Egypt, at this tense time.

PRESS
RELEASE

For
immediate use

7
April 2013

The Coptic Orthodox Church
UK

Media and Communications
Office

Statement
by His Grace Bishop Angaelos, General Bishop of the Coptic Orthodox Church in
the United Kingdom following the attack on the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate in
Cairo on 7 April 2013

While
the Arab Spring and uprising in Tahrir Square were expected to bring about a
fresh start for Egypt, the only true difference is that the situation seems to
have become progressively worse for many millions of Egyptian citizens.

Today,
Egypt saw an unprecedented attack on the See of the Pope of Alexandria, the Coptic
Orthodox Patriarchate in Cairo, by mobs, with the police arriving far too late
and doing very little, if anything at all, to prevent them.

Reports
have indicated that Egypt’s president, Mr Mohammed Morsi had made telephone
contact with the head of the Coptic Orthodox Church, His Holiness Pope Tawadros
II, Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of the See of St Mark, saying that ‘the
protection of the lives of all Egyptians, Muslims and Christian, is the
responsibility of the state.’ It is now clear that the state needs to take that
responsibility far more seriously.

We
have seen escalating and increasing attacks on Christians, Christian
communities, churches and now the Patriarchate during this past period of
expected improvement, and so questions must be asked. What are the authorities
waiting for? More bloodshed, violence, hostility, alienation, marginalisation,
division, or just more anarchy? It is clear that without intentional, pragmatic
and proactive leadership by the state, and the effective law enforcement by its
security forces, that this pattern of increasing violence and lawlessness is
the only possible outcome. With these incidents being dealt with in this way,
we see a growth of expectation of impunity and thus encouragement by some to
continue breaking the law while assured that they will not be held accountable.

Last
year, the streets of Abasseya around the Grand Cathedral of St Mark saw many
thousands of Egyptians, Christians and Muslims alike, standing to pay their
respects at the departure of our late Pope Shenouda III. Now those streets see
an attack on that same Cathedral. So what has changed, and how can we return to
the collective pride, passion and faithfulness of Egypt that we saw in Tahrir
Square in 2011 with the thousands flying Egyptian flags, and calling for a
unified state for all Egyptians?

We
pray for Egypt because we believe that Egypt, as blessed by God, still has a
chance. This chance however, hinges on faithful, pragmatic and visionary
leadership, otherwise these coming months and years will only introduce more
heartache, bloodshed and division that will inevitably lead to the decline of
the nation, that was once the birthplace of civilisation, and its individual
members.

On May
6-7, 2013 an interfaith centre Libertas
will be inaugurated in Lviv, Ukraine.

The
opening of a centre coincides with the fact that this year Ukraine chairs the
Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). It is expected
that the inauguration ceremony will be commenced by Ukraine’s Ambassador to the
Vatican, Tetiana Izhevska, who is also a Personal Representative of the
Delegate to the OSCE on Combating Racism, Xenophobia and Discrimination, also
focusing on Intolerance and Discrimination against Christians and Members of
Other Religions.

The two
keynote speakers are Most Reverend Charles Morerord, bishop of Fribourg,
Lausanne and Geneva in Switzerland, and Dr. Anthony Cernera, President of the
International Federation of Catholic Universities and President Emeritus of the
Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, CT, U.S.A.

Bishop
Morerord will be the main speaker during the interconfessional part of the
inauguration. Author of many philosophical, theological and ecumenical works,
Morerord has served as a dean and as rector at the Pontifical University of St.
Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum) in Rome, and, among other positions in the Vatican, has
held the position of Secretary General of the International Theological
Commission for Catholic-Orthodox Dialogue. In November 2011 Pope Benedict XVI
appointed Morerord to his present bishopric in Switzerland.

Dr.
Anthony Cernera will deliver the talk for the interreligious part of the
inaugural lecture. Cernera founded a center for Jewish-Christian dialogue in
the U.S. and is one of the key players in the interfaith dialogue on an
international level.

Many
guests, bishops, diplomats, representatives of Churches and religious
organizations from Ukraine and abroad are expected to take part in the
inauguration.

About the Libertas
Center: The Libertas Centre is a non-profit
organization which aims at promoting interconfessional and interreligious
dialogue and understanding in Ukraine and abroad. By applying scholarly
research and innovative thinking to interfaith issues, the center aims at the
objective of protecting the right to and the exercise of religious freedom,
establishing connections among confessions and religions in the area of
academic learning, respect, and cooperation in social projects.The Libertas
Centre promotes interfaith dialogue on an academic and practical level:
academically, the center organizes conferences, seminars and lectures where
issues concerning and religions can be studied, learned,and brought into the public forum. On the
practical level, the center’s goal is to engage in various social projects
involving members and leaders of different confessions and faiths for the sake
of understanding, cooperating and promoting common human values in a
multi-cultural and multi-religious society.

Pray for the Unity of the Apostolic Churches

The Society of St John Chrysostom promotes greater appreciation of the spiritual, theological and liturgical traditions of Eastern Christendom, works and prays for the unity of the Churches of East and West, and encourages support for the Eastern Churches :

- the Byzantine and Oriental Catholic Churches in communion with the Apostolic See of Rome (especially in their contemporary calling to promote reconciliation and the recovery of union between Catholics and Orthodox)- the Orthodox Church- the Oriental Orthodox Churches and- the Church of the East.

In the United Kingdom and Europe the Society, founded in 1926, is a group of Catholics of the Latin and Eastern Churches, along with our friends in other traditions, promoting awareness and friendship in the Christian West for our fellow Christians of the East - through prayer and liturgy, conferences and lectures, pilgrimage and ecumenical encounters.